welcome to bbc news. our top stories: the former prime minister boris johnson has abandoned his attempt to return to the job saying he won't stand in the race to replace liz truss. the front runner is rishi sunak. xi jinping has extended his rule for at least another five years and taken a firmer grip on power by promoting his allies. he was again chosen as the general secretary of the communist party, the most important political post in the country. and north and south korea have exchanged warning shots along the western seaboard south korea's military

says its navy fired shots to repel a north korean ship that had passed into the sea boundary between the north and south. north korea's military said it responded by firing ten artillery shot. now here on bbc news, political thinking with nick robinson and just a note that this programme was recorded before the news broke about boris johnson's announcement broke about borisjohnson�*s announcement that he would not stand in the conservative party leadership contest. the turmoil in the conservative party, the psychodrama, the soap opera with ever more unlikely plot developments, has its roots in brexit, the unresolved question of how this country should reshape itself, having decided to leave the eu. that is one reason my guest

on political thinking this week matters. david frost is seen by his admirers as the guardian of the brexiteer flame, the man who borisjohnson put into the house of lords and made his chief brexit negotiator, who's now considering a bid to become a member of parliament. his critics, though, ask one simple question, and i quote one of them. "who the hell is an unelected, failed minister to tell any of us what to do?" well, that's what i hope to discover in this conversation, at a moment when anything could change, and almost certainly will in politics. david frost, lord frost, welcome to political thinking. thank you. great to be here. well, let's begin with what is on everybody�*s mind. your old friend, the man you advised and whether he, borisjohnson, can and should be our next prime minister. what do you make of the speculation? well, boris is remarkable guy, and he can do things that other people can't. so i don't find it at all

surprising that we're getting this sort of noise about, "will he come back? "could he do the job?" i think the party needs to think quite hard before it, it kind of goes down this road, you know? who knows? it's not really for me to say. but, you know, there was a reason why he left office and there's a reason why he was so successful in office. and they've got to work out which of those is going to be the most important for them. what do you think was the reason he had to leave office, that matters, now? so, i think the problem was the the sense of sort of confusion and chaos that surrounded him. i think partygate was a kind of special moment, if you like, you know, a very unhappy one. but it was a product of an extraordinary period. i think what people will probably want to see is the sense that he can run a government, he can organise things.

he has a set of things he wants to deliver, can take decisions, can get things to happen. and i think that was at the root of some of the problems people had. you're asking a question that everybody has asked since boris johnson emerged. and bear in mind, i was at university with him. "can boris change?" there's a simple answer. no, and he's not going to, is he? i mean, people can't, by the time they reach his age, my age, you know, basically, people have founded their ideas and the way they work. what, and i agree, you can't expect change, but what i think you could expect, and this is going to be one of the issues, you know, can people be self—aware about their weaknesses? understand what they're naturally good at and where they need help, and get people to do the things that they don't necessarily feel they're good at themselves? and that's what we we didn't quite see. that's the test then for borisjohnson�*s leadership.

but isn't there a much more fundamental test, which we'll talk about much more as we go on with this interview? you quit his government, and you quit his government because of what you described as the "direction of travel." and did it after less than a year as a minister. isn't the truth that he's a big government, high—spending, high tax, high immigration sort of tory? he's not a brexiteer tory, in the sense that you are at all. well, there are different kinds of brexiteer tories, but the one thing they all have in common is thinking brexit is a good thing because it restores national control and democracy and democracy enables you to to have these sort of arguments. and the conservative party has always been a broad church. i think it's a bit simplistic to say he's a high spend, high tax person. i don't really think he's a high tax person. he's certainly said things that make clear he isn't, you know. that's why you quit, isn't it? well, i quit over the, what at the time, looked like the rush back down into lockdown and vaccine,

passports and so on, which has all now been kind of forgotten. but i think, you know, it is not so much that he's a convinced large—government person, it's maybe he likes to kind of avoid difficult choices, and there are definitely going to be some difficult choices coming. i think this is the puzzle that i'm hoping we will explain here to many people listening, is what these arguments in the tory party are all about. let me read you a couple of headlines from the columns you write, now which are influential. "i'm backing liz truss for pm to lead the talented team that will "deliver for britain." that was on the 14th ofjuly, 19th of october, "liz truss has to go." yeah, absolutely. six weeks. david, what on earth happened? so, i mean, we're all asking that question, i think honestly, because this is sort of totally unprecedented. i supported liz because i believed and believe she had the right diagnosis and the right policies to deal with the problem.

unfortunately, she rushed it and bungled it to a large extent, and that was exploited by people who opposed her. but even then, i think the real reason why it became actually unsustainable was that over the last week, she's flipped completely, is now advocating policies that are completely the opposite of those that she won the campaign on, and that that just won't do. you can't really have that in our system. the legitimacy is fragile enough anyway, when it's based on a vote of the ruling party and its members, and not a normal election, to then campaign, win on something and then change it completely. i think that is just, you know, whether you agree with the policies or not, it just doesn't work. but to be clear, you really wanted her to quit because you thought she was damaging the ideas that you believe in. and that getting rid

of her was the only way of preserving the possibility of implementing those ideas in future. well, i was worried it was discrediting the whole party, to be honest. i mean, obviously i believe in my ideas and lots of conservatives do. but, you know, the way the polls were were going, the way that infighting had broken out again and the way we were ending up with, you know, osborneomics, basically, that nobody had voted for in the campaign. that is just corrosive. you smiled when i read out that criticism of you. "who the hell is this unelected fellow minister to tell any mp what to do?" when i read those headlines, one minute backing her, the next minute calling for her to be sacked, one minute praising borisjohnson, the next saying you're leaving his government, do you get why some people listening to this will be screaming at the radio or the television, saying, "this man is messing up our national life?"

so, i mean, the quote you read about me ranks as a generous tribute compared to some of the things that get said about me. and i haven't really got the thick skin of other politicians yet. so this sort of thing does does sort of sting sometimes. but i think, you know, what i would say is, i believe i have a consistent set of philosophical beliefs about things which are about, you know, smallish government, freedom, free markets, the nation. and i try to stick to those beliefs. and that's you know, that's not quite what we've seen. and what's interesting about that and this programme is a conversation about what forms people's views, not just about your contemporary views. what's interesting about that is that while you say you've got a consistent set of beliefs, you grew up in a in a labour household, you were not either a tory yourself as a young man or indeed from a tory background. no, not not at all. i mean, my parents were both were both labour. they both worked for rolls—royce in derby

as draughtspersons, i suppose one would say nowadays, even though the actualjob of drawing on paper has disappeared. but yeah, we were skilled... skilled working class? skilled, yes, skilled, sort of lower middle class, i suppose you might say, though, it sounds sort of slightly, i don't really like the term, but you know what i mean. and we, you know, we we relatively unthinkingly supported labour, though we definitely had doubts, i think, in the �*80s. unthinking, or was it discussed much, politics, at the breakfast table or over your tea? no, we discussed it, we discussed it a lot. and, you know, we all had sort of slightly different perspectives on things. that's for sure, but... but even at that stage, were you arguing with your mum and dad who you said were slightly unthinking in their support for labour? no, ithink, you know, that's probably an unfair word. we, you know, we all we all had the same philosophical beliefs about the kind of society

we wanted to see. at that stage, you fancied neil kinnock being leader of the country. yes, that is that is true. and we all change our mind about things. when, in your case? was it a moment or was it a process? it was more a process, i think. and, you know, for me, it was during the �*90s, i guess, when i was in the foreign office, you know, kind of exposed to the real world. just to remind people, you joined the foreign office straight out of university. you go to brussels. you become private secretary to the head of diplomatic service. quite a grand job. it's a sort ofjob that makes it look like you're rising to the top of the foreign office and end up as ambassador to denmark. but during this period, you say? yeah, ithink... in the �*90s, i spent a lot of time in brussels and indeed a lot of time after

that in brussels. and i think, you know, people who go to brussels it usually has two effects on them. most, the majority effect seems to be what a wonderful thing, this is a great organisation, let's get, you know, we need to work with it. but there is a minority view which came to me, which is that i don't like this organisation. i don't agree with what it's doing. i don't think that the rush to a broader, nondemocratic, europe—wide organisation is the right thing to be doing. and that's the effect that it had on me. but you see, one of your former bosses has told us, "i saw no trace of serious euroscepticism at the time." another said, "he decided to be a brexiteer, brexiteer and then created a back story to fit it." they can't see any evidence of your time in the foreign office that you had doubts about europe.

well, maybe they're just saying i was a professional civil servant then, because yourjob is not to give vent to your own opinions all the time, but to try and do what the government is trying to do. and that's what i tried to do. did that feel limiting? did it feel annoying to go home and sort of have to say to yourself, i don't know whether you could say it to friends orfamily, "i don't agree with this stuff." i mean, it's part of thejob. if you can't do that, then you shouldn't be a civil servant, because you've got to live your professional life on somebody else�*s terms. and in the end, i left because i didn't feel that that was what i wanted to do for my whole life. did you leave, though, because it didn't work out? you see that phrase, thatjob title, private secretary to the head of the diplomatic service probably means nothing to most people listening. in the business, that means the guy tapped up to rise to the top of this

organisation. he's being trained. what went wrong? why didn't you get it? well, i left. did you leave because you weren't making the progress you wanted or... no, i left because i felt it wasn't. .. i got frustrated by not being able to do and say what i what i thought about things. and, you know, i still had a lot of my life in front of me and i didn't want to live it on somebody else�*s terms the whole time. well, let's turn to brexit then, because you've described how in the �*90s you came round to it. i just want you to play a small political thinking game with me. i'm going to read out some statements and see whether you agree or disagree with this. "can any future trading arrangements be as good as the current ones provided by membership?" is that a statement you would... i think it's a sort of trick question coming here. do you recognise this? i recognise some

of the statements. i'll give you some more. "the case for change has to be overwhelming. "it isn't. "britain will be demander, so it will be britain that has "to make the concessions to get the deal. "in short, even the best case outcome can't be as good "as what we have now." whose words are those? so, they're mine. while i was head, i think, the scotch whisky association and the the policy of the scotch whisky association was to stay in the eu. and i don't think they would have thanked me if i'd made up my own policy on the hoof. i understand that, but it will puzzle people the depth of the arguments for remain that came out of your lips, as it were, or came from your pen or on your computer. so, the scotch whisky association is a trading organisation and that's what we were talking about. and ever since i've been in a position to, to say things in public in my current roles, when i was brexit negotiator and beyond, i've always said leaving the customs union

and the single market has a cost. not every brexiteer has been willing to to say that, but i have always said it. i don't think it's as big as many people say, but the important thing about brexit is not only the trading arrangements, it's democracy, it's running your own affairs, and it's the ability to open your own market to competition, to regulate it in a different way, to open it up to the world, and to create the kind of dynamism that drives capitalist economy and that the european union is driving out. so you do have to look at it in the round, i think. and now for people listening who hear some of those phrases, what do you say to someone who says that everything that david frost wrote turned out to be true? that the economic situation is worse than it was under membership? it was very risky. britain is a demander, as you put it, and therefore has had to make concessions to get deals.

everything you said here turned out to be true, didn't it? i don't think it has turned out to be true. to be honest, i think, as i said, there is a trade there's a trade aspect.... but forgive me that that's an argument that there are other important things and there is clearly a sovereignty argument and an independence argument. there's quite separate from the economic argument. you may well be a brexiteer for all those reasons and accept an economic price. what i was asking was, weren't you right in everything you predicted about it economically? no, because economics is more than trade. you know, there has been a small hit to our trade with the eu. that's, that's obvious. it's nowhere near as big as people are saying. but what matters is growth, the size of the economy and the broader economic prospects for the country. and there, if you compare us to the g7 since 2016, the path is pretty much the same. it's not better, though, is it?

it's going to take time to do this. and as i've said, you know, i don't think we've been going at this fast enough. so in other words, your key thought is that it's the opportunity to do something different, even if we haven't done it yet. yes. we'll come to that in the context of the current argument about the conservative party in a second. let's turn to your negotiating style. you raised it that people think you are... how would you describe it? what do you think they thought of your negotiating style? we felt that nobody believed a word we said. nobody really understood what we were trying to do. and we had to be as clear as we possibly could about what was acceptable and what wasn't, what we were going to live with and what we weren't. and that, you know, that probably did require, you know, a reset and a bit of correction in the way we go about things. i wouldn't necessarily advocate it, as you know, you should always do diplomacy like that. of course that's not true. you have to tailor it to the circumstances. i asked you how they regarded you. i mean, some people said they hated your guts. i mean, they ridiculed you.

they said that you weren't a diplomat. they rejoiced when you left office. of course, yeah. is thatjust the price you had to pay to get the job done? the price we had to pay. you know, these are people who wanted us to stay in the eu and boris and i and a few of others ruin their life's work. and everything they'd worked for had turned to ashes, and that was the right thing to do. so i'm not surprised they're unhappy. that's hardly surprising. but you said earlier you're not a politician yet, although you almost are, and you hadn't developed the sort of thick skin that you need in politics. did you find that at a personal level quite hard? i do find it quite hard. i mean, people did not say these sort of things to my face. and, you know, ifelt that my team and michel barnier�*s team got on pretty well. you know, we we had, you know, perfectly good sort of correct relations with each other as far as that was possible during the pandemic. but yeah, i, you know, i haven't spent my life being elected and having

people shout at me. one of the difficulties, it seems to me, was notjust tonal, was that they thought you'd ripped up a deal that you yourself had recommended, that borisjohnson, with you acting as an adviser, had said "this northern ireland deal is a disgrace." he signed it. so, i mean, you have to look at the context. we came in office with a terrible withdrawal agreement, a terrible northern ireland protocol that kept us locked in the customs union and the single market forever. it couldn't get through parliament. we had to improve it. now, parliament passed a law saying that you can't leave without a deal. therefore, we had to find some sort of deal that dealt with the worst. we knew... so, as it were, do the deal, know it's no good but it's the way to deliver brexit is the way to get brexit done

and then go back to it? it's the way to take an acceptable risk that we thought balanced all the factors and could work and it gave us optionality about the future, as regards the free trade agreement, the customs relationships and so on, for the future, which that did. you now use your column in the daily telegraph to argue for policy. most often, yes, you do personality, but you argue passionately for a different direction. explain to someone who's not a conservative or not active in politics, why is the split in the tory party so deep and what is the split really about? i think there's a lot of things going on and it's not only in the conservative party, obviously, i think the whole british political system is going through a bit of a convulsion after brexit. it's not surprising when you get this sort of huge change and i think it's got some way to play out yet. conservative party has always been a, you know, a coalition of of different views of social conservatives,

of, you know, nationalists, if you like the word, or free marketeers of people who have a range of views... but we're talking of people, unlike in, say, the thatcher period, where there were deep divides inside the conservative party in the cabinet. you did not get what you get now, which is people saying, "i will quit my membership of the conservative party if so—and—so becomes leader, i will do everything to bring this person down." you do get it now, you, for many people, are the symbol, if you like, of that kind of right—wing orthodoxy. so i'm trying to get a sense of you what's at stake? why are the stakes so big? the tory party is a brexit party now. i think that's that's clear. there are very few who disagree with that in the party now. but i think you've got

to you've got two wings, you've got, you know, if you like, a sort of free market liberal wing to the party that is in inverted commas, "globalist," if you like, looks out of britain, you know, is not so invested in things like immigration. stopping... yeah, exactly. and then you've got another wing, which puts emphasis on, you know, strength of the state law and order, migration, borders, defence spending and pushing back, i hate the word, but pushing back against sort of "woke opinions," to use shorthand. and those i think can co—exist within a party. but if one or the other becomes too strong, as has happened in the past, is happening now, you get this rubbing up against each other in a very robust way. you're a commentator now and quite an influential one

within the conservative party. and people listening to you will hear a kind of thoughtful man, quite philosophical man, a man who stresses that he's a bit uncomfortable with some of the abuse that comes along with modern politics. and yet you say things like, "i don't like the word globalist," but you use the word globalist. "i don't like the word woke," but you use the word woke. and your columns are used by people who are much angrier than you sound. do you think you behave responsibly as a columnist? yes, i do. ithink, you know, i use the words globalism and woke in this interview because the people understand what i'm talking about... but, you know, there are people now who think liz truss was brought down quotes and i do quote and these are words you'll hear on gb news all the time "by a conspiracy of deep state anti—brexit globalists." indeed. and i think in my column this week i explicitly said that is not true.

conspiracy theories are wrong. i don't believe that. wouldn't it be better not to use conspiracy theorist language then? well, to refute it, i think you have to use it. and that's that's explicitly what i was doing. and you don't want to be a columnist any more. you're thinking of becoming a member of parliament. why so? many would argue you're more influential in your currentjob than you would be as a tory backbencher. well, it is not unknown for people to hold both roles, i would say, but that's that's looking to the future. i think if you want to do serious politics, in the end, you have to be in the commons. and i people say to me, "who elected you?" i mean, everyone�*s got the right to say what they think. but nevertheless, it is a reasonable criticism, in the sense that ultimately, legitimacy comes from the elected house. and i think the lords has got bit above itself in recent years, if i'm honest

and i've said that. have you got a seat in mind? no, we're not at that. at that point, i think there are some associations who will be interested... you'll be a candidate in the next election. i'm not necessarily... you will be a candidate? no, i'm still. i'm fairly confident i could be if i wanted to. the question is, is it kind of really what i like doing and want to do? and you think your role in public life, you think you've made the country better? i think i've... i don't think brexit would have happened if boris and i and dominic cummings and a few others had not been in that place at the right time, it is now in others hands to make the country better. what we have created is the ability to choose, the ability of proper debate,

the ability to make things happen again. and that, i believe, is a good thing for a country. david frost, lord frost, thanks forjoining me on political thinking. thank you. david frost embodies the problem, the trauma, if you like, that the conservative party now faces. on the one hand, he has a clear, quietly argued, philosophical case for the sort of country he wants to develop after the brexit, which he helped to deliver. on the other, he's a man whojoined borisjohnson�*s government, then quit it, called for liz truss to be prime minister and then called just weeks later for her to quit, and who sounds like he doesn't think there's anybody who's really right to be her successor and our next prime minister. ideas they have. people they can unite behind, they don't. thanks for watching.

hello there. we have seen some heavy rain earlier in the night and some thunderstorms as well. things will be coming down a bit, though, a monday morning. you have no rain across eastern england moving away was the north sea, rhaney far north of scotland, otherwise it is west to south—westerly breeze will bring sunshine and a scattering of showers. most of the showers is on worse, if you getting into eastern areas, but there will be some sunshine around as well. still on the mild 15 in scotland, 17—18 across south—eastern parts of scotland. bellwether tends to be dominated by low pressure sitting to the west the uk, pushing in the weather from the south and bringing us warmer conditions from the south as well. we may will stay dry on tuesday, the showers faded away overnight. there will be some sunshine around. yourjob sunshine around. your job developing sunshine around. yourjob developing through the day in the worst, perhaps, is this lovely rains pick up, was a

cloud and rain coming in, perhaps south wales by the end of the day. a lot of places will be dry on tuesday, still on the mild side, damages 14—18 celsius. —— temperatures.

welcome to bbc news, i'm rich preston. our top stories: three become two, borisjohnson drops out of the race to be the next leader of britain's conservative party, and prime minister, leaving rishi sunak and penny mordaunt in the running. the former chancellor is now the clear frontrunner. we'll be asking what's now more likely, a contest or a coronation? cementing his place at the top, china's president xi will have a third term in power, the first to do so since chairman mao. and, one of brazil's most prominent indigenous leaders warns there'll be further damage to the amazon rainforest, if president bolsonaro is re—elected.